Sister
by xIgnoranceIsBlissx
Summary: REDONE. 5 years have passed, and Carth's allowed to follow Revan. Except the Exile's arrived, bringing more mysteries. Questions abound: Who is the Exile, really? Can the True Sith be stopped? Who's chasing the Exile? And where the Force has Revan gone?
1. Prologue

**REVAMPING THIS STORY!!**

_**Sister: Prologue**_

In a modest apartment on Citadel Station, a woman woke up screaming.

Revan Vaas looked wildly around for Carth, but the space next to her was empty. _Wha – where… where is he!? _The nightmare shrieked through her mind. Trying to control her mounting panic, she glanced at the clock.

Revan calmed down a little. It was 9:01. _No wonder he's gone – he had that meeting at eight_. She closed her eyes and sighed out, nerves scrunching her forehead even as she tried to center herself.

She was considerably more relaxed now, but the remnants of her dream were still haunting Revan. The echoing shouts and screams were bouncing around her skull as she slowly got up out of bed.

Wrapping a pale blue robe tightly around herself, the former Sith Lady quietly left her apartment. There was no Carth to talk to right now, but Revan needed to get the dream off her chest. She wandered down the hall, past the doors of her comrades, wondering who she could tell of this horrific nightmare. As she ticked off names in her head, she was inwardly grateful that most were staying on Telos's Citadel Station for the first 6 months after the Star Forge.

The first door next to her and Carth's apartment was home to… _Mission? Nah, don't want to upset her, she's too young._

Progressing down the hall, Revan continued to cross off names in her head. _Zaalbar's back with his clan, and Canderous is trying to reunite the Mandalorians… that's out. Bastila? No, that dream was from the Dark Side time and that's kinda why she fell… Juhani? Maybe, but she isn't really who I was looking for._

Revan came to a halt in front of the final door in the row. _Jolee!_

She knocked cautiously on the door. From within came an annoyed, "It's only 9 o'clock! Come back later, I'm eating, dammit!"

She bit her lip to keep in laughter. Good old Jolee. If anyone could understand, it was him. "Shut up, old man, it's only me," she called in answer. "And it's 9:01, by the way."

The sound of shuffling feet and a gruff, "Damn technicalities" answered her, and finally the door swung open to reveal Jolee. He gave her a sour glance and grumbled, "It better be important, lass…"

She smiled weakly, suddenly unsure of herself. "Very. May I come in?" Jolee's expression softened as he saw the nervousness on Revan's face. He didn't speak, just nodded once and gestured into his small apartment.

The short, thin Jedi sat in one of Jolee's chairs. Her black hair was loose and tangled around her face, and her brown eyes drooped with exhaustion and uncertainty. Jolee's brow furrowed as he surveyed her face. "So you're exhausted looking, and you come prancing down here with no warning in your pajamas and a bathrobe at 9 in the morning. Why?"

Revan met his eyes for a moment, then looked down. "It was a new memory…" she murmured at the cold tile under her bare feet.

Jolee's eyes widened. Revan's mind was like two halves of a whole: One half was her memories and experiences from her time under the alias Nikita Vaas and as the new, lightsided Revan. The other was from her time as Revan-the-Dark-Lord-of-the-Sith and her childhood before that. The latter memories were scattered and fragmented, but ever since the revelation of her time as the Sith Lady, they had come to her in dreams. However, after the defeat of Malak and her acceptance of the past, Revan's memory-dreams had slowed. A new one was a surprise.

Jolee smiled kindly at her, and leaned back in his chair.. "Tell me about it, lass." Despite the obvious willingness of Jolee for her to continue, Revan still refused to look up. She took several deep breaths and began slowly:

"It was from the time during the Mandalorian Wars, I've figured out that much. I still have my violet lightsaber, so I wasn't fallen yet. I was on a ship over Malachor V. There was a holovid going of the interior of another ship. I was – was telling a Jedi to activate the mass shadow generator. I feel like I know her, but I can't place it. She didn't want to activate it at first; she tried to tell me there were other ways to win. But I didn't listen, said it was the only way for the Republic to end the war, and she did it. And then…"

Revan broke off, a lump in her throat. The older Jedi waited patiently as she regained control of her shaking voice.

In a very quiet voice, she said, "And then she was screaming and wouldn't stop. And I think I had a Force Bond with her, because I could feel pain. Oh, Force, it hurt, so badly, and it was diluted because it wasn't directly at me. Can you imagine how much she was hurting? It wasn't physical, it was like… like my connection to the Force was peeling away. And there were voices in my head, and they weren't mine, and they were screaming too, and the blonde Jedi there kept saying my name and asking why… And then, suddenly, the pain was gone. I couldn't hear the screaming, but I couldn't feel the blonde Jedi anymore, either…"

Revan trailed off into silence. Jolee watched her for a minute or two, before asking, "What were you thinking about before you went to sleep?"

Revan looked up. She thought back to the night before. She and Carth had been cleaning up after dinner when he had come up behind her and whispered, "I love you, Nikita Vaas." She had looked at him, and said, "Don't call me that anymore. I was Revan before it was Darth Revan, and I want to keep the name. Nikita Vaas doesn't exist." He had nodded, and they had moved into their bedroom, the name Nikita Vaas still fresh in Revan's mind…

"I was thinking about my name," she told Jolee, a crease forming between her brows. "My name from the Star Forge quest, Nikita Vaas."

"Ahhhh…" Jolee sighed, contemplating her, an intrigued expression on his dark-skinned face. When Revan stared at him, confused, he began to explain.

"You know that Vaas was your last name even before your memory was lost, and Revan your first?" She nodded. Jolee continued, "Well, for a while now I've wondered where the name Nikita came from. You see, Bastila tells me that the Council let you choose it."

Revan's eyes grew wide, but Jolee pressed on, "They asked you if the last name Vaas meant anything to you when you were still recovering from the capture. You said yes. They then asked why, and you said 'Nikita'. So they gave you the name, seemingly in an attempt to let you decide who you were, as long as it was not Revan.

"What confuses me is that the Jedi must have known who Nikita was if they knew you from when you were young. So it stands to reason that they would only give it to you if the owner didn't need it anymore. And since you said the name, she must have been important to you."

Revan sat up straight. "She must have. That must have been her, the blonde one." She paused, worry washing over her. "I wonder why they gave me her name…" she murmured. Jolee leaned back in the chair he had sat in, and stared Revan straight in the eye. "Go on with your day, and before you go to sleep, meditate on Nikita Vaas," he advised. "Maybe more dreams will come."

Revan nodded once, and rose, giving Jolee a grateful smile. "Thank you, you old coot," she said teasingly, and Force-sped towards to door.

Jolee chucked a pillow at her, and yelled at her retreating back, "Fine way to thank my service to you!" To himself, he mumbled, "Old coot indeed!"

---

Carth returned late in the day from his meeting, by which time Revan was back to her usual cheerful self. She had taken Mission shopping – always an interesting experience – and was in a considerably better mood for it. She asked Cart how his day was, nodding and smiling as he told her excitedly that he was being considered for a position as Admiral, and that Dustil was going to continue with his Jedi training. Revan acted completely normal, leaving Carth blissfully unaware of her returning memories. She didn't know why she kept it quiet, except somehow, she knew it tied in with the research she had done over the past 3 months. Research Carth couldn't know about.

_Nikita Vaas, Nikita Vaas, Nikita Vaas…_ Revan chanted this like a mantra in her head as she prepared for bed. Even the warmth of Carth beside her couldn't distract her from the desire to get the memories.

_Nikit__a Vaas, Nikita Vaas, Nikita Vaas…_

_Nikita Vaas, Nikita Vaas..._

_Nikita Vaas..._

_.: Revan stood in her Sith warship a few months after her invasion of the Republic. She determinedly hacked the dead Jedi's datapad, tracing it back to its roots in the Jedi archives. She __had__ to know what had happened to Nikita._

_At last, she cracked the code. Deftly, she scrolled through until she found the records of the Order's Knights, and searched for 'Vaas, Nikita'._

_Her scream of fury as she read 'Exiled' rang through the whole ship. :._

_.: Again, the dream of Malachor V's destruction flooded Revan's consciousness: the indescribable pain, the death of the planer, and the screams of the blonde Jedi – 'Revan, why?' :._

_.: Revan and Malak stood looking over the Dantooinian plains. It was mere hours before they left to join the Republic in the Mandalorian Wars. 'We'll save the Republic!' crowed Malak as he remembered their plan. His jaw was a natural one now, and he stood tall and proud, his head almost a foot above Revan._

'_Shut up, you,' a younger, but happier Revan snapped. 'We haven't even left yet.' _

_From behind them, the sandy-haired Jedi of her memories joined the pair, slinging an arm over Revan's shoulder. 'Oh, don't be such a killjoy, Rev…' :._

_.: Even more time had rewound, to a time when the Mandalorian Wars weren't even a thought. Malak and Revan were comparing their brand-new, just-built lightsabers, gasping with pride and delight._

_Nearby, the blonde Jedi sulked. In this memory, an age difference of at least two years was apparent between her and her friends. 'You always get everything first, Rev,' she complained, staring at the glowing blades with obvious envy._

_Revan smiled smugly, activating and deactivating her violet saber absentmindedly. 'Of course I do, Nik. It's a fact of life – live with it.' :._

_.: The memories continued to fly backwards. A six year old Revan, only two years into her training, anxiously scanned the newest crowd of younglings to arrive at the Academy. She clutched a letter from her parents in her small fist. She needed to find Nikita, and soon._

_Finally, she spotted the scared looking four year old in the corner. The blonde child's nervous look turned to joy, and she smiled as Revan ran over, hugging her tightly. The letter fell to the ground next to them and was swept away by the wind.:._

_.: A four year old Revan was being escorted onto a star cruiser by two tall, faceless Jedi. She looked morosely over her shoulder and waved goodbye, Behind her, her parents, one dark and one fair, waved back. In the fair woman's arms a blonde toddler bawled… :._

_.: The last memory was the fuzziest. A two year old Revan leaned over the edge of a cradle, staring at the baby within. The infant was round and pink, with an unruly tuft of blonde hair and vividly green eyes that gazed at the older girl – as unlike Revan as possible. From above her, she heard her mother proudly saying, 'That's your sister, Revvie – your sister Nikita.' :._

Revan sat bolt upright in bed, heart pounding, breath shallow, and gaze wild. Carth cracked an eyelid, but opened both eyes as he stared at her panicked state.

"Rev?" he croaked in a voice rough with sleep. "You all right?"

She shook her head, and looked into his warm, sleepy eyes. "Remember how I told you not to call me Nikita, because she didn't exist?" Carth was upright too now, watching Revan's face. "Yeah?" he said cautiously.

Revan met his gaze, and whispered, "I lied."

---

Two days later, it was Carth who woke up to his partner missing. In her place he found a black datapad with a message for him:

**Dear Carth,**

**All that research I've been doing for the past few months has led up to this. I never told you what it was about, did I? Well, I am now. There's this… I'm not sure what to call it – a force? Maybe the better word is 'race'. Anyway, they're out there, beyond Republic space, and they're called the True Sith.**

**These aren't like Malak. They aren't even like me from when I fell. They're literally anti-Force that take the shape of humans and aliens, so darksided you can't even sense it until it's too late. They've been fueling conflict for centuries, millennia even. One of them led the Rakata takeover. Another persuaded Mandalore to go to war. Yet another had some sort of contact with Malak and me, but I can't remember. All of this has been chipping away at the stability of the galaxy, even the stability of the Force, because they want to kill it. And I've put the weapon in their hands. **

**I told you about my sister, how she suffered at Malachor. But it's worse than anyone knew. She's a hole in the Force now – losing all those bonds ripped the Force right away from her, leaving a wound. She can use it for the ultimate good – she can find Force sensitivity easier, she can unite people – but if the True Sith get her, they'll use the hole to attack the Force. To kill it. To end all life.**

**It's my fault. I made her press the button. But now I know about the True Sith. I know what I have to do. I have to get my sister back into Republic space, where she'll be safer, and I have to stop the True Sith.**

**I bet one of your questions is why I didn't take anyone. You see, I know I'll be able to survive the trip. I've fallen before, seen the worst the Dark side has to offer, and I turned them down, thanks to you. I know I can fight the pull of the True Sith. Any other Jedi couldn't. Anyone else might be pulled into becoming a hostage or a tool. And Carth, I can't lose you like that.**

**Remember that I love you. I'll always be with you Carth. I know you'll want to follow me, but I need you to keep the Republic strong. If it falls, everything is lost: us, the future, the Force.**

**If you really need me back, here is this: In five years, I should be back. But if I'm not, then we have a **_**major**_** problem. I'll need you then, as many as you can bring, and frack the risk of falling. If it's taking me that long, things are about to go badly anyway.**

**Believe me, if I could stay with you, I would. I love you so much, Carth. I'll try not to get myself killed, because the only thing I want is to see your face again.**

**Yours forever,**

**REVAN**

**P.S. – Your first clue is this: Cheap food, cheap stuff, on this planet you can't get enough! (Don't laugh at my rhyme!)**

**---**

**~And so it begins. Revan is gone, the Exile is her sister, and Carth is alone.**

**Please continue reading. **

**Gracias.**

**xIgnoranceIsBlissx**


	2. Black

**And so it begins… wait, didn't I say that last chapter? ANYWAY, a little AU-ness here: Carth never talked to the Exile after the battle, he's talking to her now after Malachor.**

**Note: My Exile looks something like the Exile drawn by *aimo on **

_**Sister: Black**_

.:5 Years Later:.

Nikita Vaas lounged in the copilot's chair of the _Ebon Hawk, _her feet propped up on the controls. Her blonde hair was pulled into a short, messy ponytail off of her face, and her sharp green eyes were fixed on what was just outside of the _Hawk's_ windows: Citadel Station, looking battered from the recent battle, but still resolutely afloat thanks to Vogga's shipments of fuel.

"So no ideas on why the Admiral wants to talk to us?" Nikita looked over at Atton Rand, who was steering the ship into port. She shrugged. "Not a clue. Maybe he wants to give us a medal for saving the station." She didn't even believe her own words, and so wasn't overly surprised when Atton gave one of his trademark grins and said, "Yeah, I'd buy that… you know, if it weren't our fault it was attacked."

"Oh, shut up," Nikita snapped. "You're ruining my hopes for a _nice_ arrival!" Atton just kept smiling and turned the _Hawk_ slightly to the left. "Whatever you say, 'Kita."

As he occupied himself with steering them into Citadel Station, Nikita smiled to herself. She was overwhelmingly happy that Atton had survived what happened on Malachor. Nikita felt an undeniable surge of guilt even thinking of it, but she knew that she would rather have things happened the way they did than have those they lost back, but Atton gone.

It was because she was in love with him, she knew. Somewhere between yelling at him for staring at her chest on Peragus and right now, they had sped through acquaintance, friendship, and straight on to romance. But she was afraid. Kreia's – no, _Traya's_ – predictions in the Trayus Core had terrified her. What if he didn't love her? What if she told him, and he rejected her? She knew it would make another hole in her, not nearly as big as the Force one, but just as painful in its own way.

_So you can be cut off from the Force, live in exile for almost ten years with no friends, find all those missing Jedi masters, train five grown people to be Jedi, kill a Sith Lord return to Malachor V, kill two more Sith Lords and destroy a Sith Academy, _she mused,_ but you can't tell Atton how you feel._

She leaned back in her chair and blew a strip of blonde hair off her forehead. _Pathetic._

Atton eased the ship into the familiar landing dock on Citadel Station. Nikita could see that several TSF officers were waiting at the doors, among them Lieutenant Dol Gren. She swore under her breath. Gren was not very high on the list of people she liked.

Atton groaned. "Great, a welcoming committee." Nikita shot him a look. "Come on now," she scolded. "It's different. Last time you were a criminal off Peragus. Now you are a big, bad Jedi with a cool orange lightsaber." Atton flashed his scoundrel's grin at her, his fingers brushing the orange blade tucked tightly into his belt. Then he rose and made his way to the _Hawk's_ central room. Nikita trailed behind him.

As she entered, her eyes darted to the remaining members of her crew. Mandalore, HK-47, T3-M4, Mical, and Visas all watched as the others entered. Her heart hurt as she looked at the place where Mira and Bao-Dur should have stood. The red-headed huntress was currently lying in the medbay, unresponsive even to Mical's medical skills. Something had been done to her by the Sith students in the Trayus Academy. They had seen her lying on the ground of Malachor when they were leaving. Bao-Dur had tried to rescue her, using his newly-discovered Force powers to jump down to her. However, as the _Ebon Hawk_ lowered to retrieve them, a spear of rock had pierced him through the stomach. Now he, too, lay in the medbay, teetering somewhere between life and death.

It hurt to think that despite her efforts, she couldn't help them. Really, now that most of the Jedi were dead, there was only one whose skills exceeded Nikita's who may, _may_ be able to help. But no one knew where she was.

Her eyes flickered over the circle again, hardly noting G0-T0's absence (he hadn't done much but float and be a pessimist). She caught Atton's quick glance-over of her, and Mical's puppydog stares.

Inwardly, she sighed. That was all she needed – for two members of her crew to fight over her. As if she didn't have enough to cope with at the moment! Outwardly, though, she assumed the stance of the no-nonsense general who has led them through the past months.

"All right," she barked. "All this is is a visit to the Admiral because he 'needs to speak with us'. All of you but T3 are coming in – T, I need you to monitor Bao and Mira." Nikita masked the crack in her voice as she said their names the best she could. Pressing on, she continues, "But only two will actually meet with the Admiral with me." Mical perked up at once, and Nikita clenched her fists. She hated putting him down, but he needed to get the message that she didn't return his affections.

"Atton will come with me, since he was one of the original three to land here and they kind of sort of know him now." Mical's face fell, but no one else reacted. They weren't stupid enough to bring up the third person who had come with Nikita and Atton onto that station for the first time.

"So who else wants to come?" As soon as the words left her mouth, she swore and wished she could take them back. She knew that Mical would volunteer, and she'd be stuck with both him and Atton – not a comfortable situation under any circumstances.

To her surprise, however, Mandalore spoke first. He had rejoined with them after Malachor. "I'll come," he said, earning him stares from the other crew members. The stares were to be expected; Mandalore was distant from the crew at best, and didn't really speak to anyone but Nikita. His volunteering was certainly a surprise maneuver. Nikita couldn't be sure, but she could have sworn she heard him mumble something inside that tin can of a helmet that sounded like "old time - and Bastila…"

Nikita grinned roguishly at each of them. "Right, then, off we go."

---

Lieutenant Gren was waiting for them with a couple TSF officers flanking him. He nodded politely at them, but Atton scowled. It was obvious he had not forgotten the last time Gren greeted them upon landing – they had ended up in high security cages and then in house arrest.

"Ah, Miss Vaas," Gren said in his gruff monotone. Nikita gave him a look that held no expression whatsoever. She wasn't his biggest fan, either. He had done a terrible job of keeping the station safe, last time _she_ checked. "The Admiral is waiting. Follow me."

Nikita snorted. "I'm not going by myself," she informed him sourly, and gestured to her crew.

Grenn narrowed his eyes. "And they are…?"

She smirked at his obvious infuriation. "Mical – a Jedi historian we found on Dantooine. Visas Marr, an ex-Sith assassin. Mandalore of Clan Ordo – yes, a Mandalorian. Bao. And And the assassin droid HK-47. Inside is also a bounty hunter fresh off Nar Shaddaa and the tech who invented the mass shadow generator."

Nikita could have laughed at Gren's obvious horror of just who she had brought to his precious station. She concluded with a flourish, "And you know Atton, and of course, me."

Gren shut his eyes and took several deep breaths. Just to unsettle him more (because one of her favorite pastimes was toying with people's thoughts), Nikita took pleasure in adding, "Oh, and I've trained Mical, Mira the bounty hunter, Visas, Bao-Dur the tech, and Atton as Jedi. I am their Master."

Nearly all color flooded out of Gren's face. Niki could practically hear his panic on having six Jedi – five trained by the _Exile_, and one the Exile herself, no less – inside Citadel Station.

"Very… very well then," Gren said, obviously unsettled. "Follow me… all of you. We'll see the Admiral now."

---

Admiral Onasi was a relatively handsome man, Nikita noted. He had dark brown hair with only the barest streaks of grey, deep brown eyes, and a friendly smile. In fact, he looked a good deal like an older, more refined Atton.

He smiled kindly as Nikita, Atton and Mandalore entered his office. Gren marched purposefully ahead of them, and announced sourly, "Nikita Vaas, Atton Rand, and Mandalore to see you, Admiral. The," he paused delicately over the word, "_other_ Jedi are outside."

"Others?" Onasi said interestedly. He eyed Nikita, who bowed slightly and said, "There is me, Atton, and four other Jedi here, sir."

He raised an eyebrow. "You have been busy, I see. Good for you, rebuilding the Order." He sounded genuine, so she grinned cheekily, and answered, "There's only so much to occupy you on a journey all over the galaxy."

The Admiral barked a laugh. "Believe me, I know," he replied, then told Grnn, "You are dismissed." The lieutenant nodded, paused long enough to spare Nikita a sour glance, then left the room.

Admiral Onasi stood up, and paced to the front of his desk. He seemed very restless. "Welcome back to the station," he said. "I hope Gren didn't give you too much trouble." Atton snorted. "No more than last time," he said bitterly. "I remember something about cages, an assassin, and house arrest?"

Onasi smiled grimly at Nikita's pilot-Jedi. "He's a little overenthusiastic," he explained. "Not a terrible trait, but often irritating. But enough about him. Down to business." He went back behind his desk and sank into the chair. His restlessness, Nikita sensed, had turned into something more like… anticipation.

Onasi pulled out a battered black datapad from a drawer. Nikita looked at it expectantly, but the Admiral just gazed at it without turning it on. Waves of melancholy seethed off him. Even Atton could sense it; Nikita saw his face scrunching in concentration. Onasi set the datapad down on the desktop after a moment, then looked Nikita dead in the eye. He spoke only nine words, but they carried a blow right to Nikita's heart.

"Does the name 'Revan Vaas' mean anything to you?"

It happened very quickly after that. In just about two seconds, the Admiral and Nikita were nose to nose, her violet and cyan lightsabers crossed only a few inches from his neck. She glared at him with the closest a Jedi could get to pure unadultered rage.

"How do you know that name?" she hissed. Her green eyes shone with a mix of aggression, fury, and something bordering on fear. _How could he know?_ When Onasi did nothing but smile, she cinched her blades tighter to his skin and shrieked, "Tell me!"

"'Kita!" She looked up at Atton. Though he had his hand on his own orange blade, an automatic reaction to Nikita's leadership, he was giving her a very warning glare. The glare said plainly, _Don't do it, 'Kita. You'll regret it._

She decided to heed him. Carefully, she drew the lightsabers away from Admiral Onasi's neck, though she kept them ignited and kept her eyes on his face. Backing up so she was once again flanked by Atton and Mandalore, she whispered, "Sorry."

The Admiral rubbed his neck and smiled wryly. "It's all right. The first time I aggravated her, she nearly ran me through with her vibroblade."

Nikita didn't need to ask who 'her' was. She knew. She knew that name as easily as she knew her own. She knew how close that name was to her heart. Almost as surely, she knew that the Admiral was hiding something. Again she thought _How could he know? _She twirled her violet blade deftly in her hand and narrowed her eyes at Onasi. "I ask again – how do you know that name?"

Onasi surveyed her face, then wordlessly handed her the datapad. She snatched it away, reading the words written by the woman she thought had been lost. The dark lettering blurred across her vision. _True Sith… Malachor… hole in the Force…_

"She knew…" she murmured. She squeezed her eyes shut to fight the sudden need to cry. All of Revan's memories had been lost, and still she remembered Nikita. She _worried _about her. As the sudden wave of sadness past, Nikita read another line near the bottom. Her eyes snapped up to the Admiral. "You and her… together?"

Admiral Onasi – Carth – nodded. "I was on the Star Forge journey with her, when she killed Malak. Me, Canderous, Mission, Bastila, Juhani, Jolee, HK-47, and T3-M4." Nikita started at the last two names. "I have T3 and HK now. They're part of my crew," she told him, feeling a warm little glow at having a connection to Revan with her all along. Onasi's eyes widened slightly, but Nikita was on a roll now. The name of Bastila struck a familiar chord. She spun around to face Mandalore. "You said Bastila's name on the ship," she said accusingly.

Onasi glared at the heavily armored Mandalorian. "Now why would you say that?" he asked. His voice was thick with suspicion. "What's she to you, _Mandalore_?"

Mandalore snorted. "Oh, come on, Republic. Even you aren't that stupid, are you?" he asked bitingly. The Admiral's jaw dropped. Obviously he knew that voice. To Nikita's surprise, Mandalore removed his helmet to show the face of a man with short cut graying hair and a battle scarred face.

Onasi leaned back in his chair and roared with laughter. "Canderous!" he shouted. "I should have known! You always manage to get involved with the good stuff."

Atton was looking very confused by this point. His eyes darted between Mandalore and Onasi. "Wait…" he said slowly. "You two destroyed the Star Forge with _Revan_?" When they nodded, he looked at Nikita. "Well, how do you know her then? I know you followed her, but…"

Nikita rolled her eyes. "Think, Atton," she told him. "Revan _Vaas._ Nikita _Vaas_." She paused a moment to let it sink in. Then Atton's eyes bulged, and he gasped, "Your _sister?!_" Nikita nodded, eyes shining. She grinned apologetically at Carth. "Sorry about threatening you," she said. "Knowing Rev's last name… well, not many people do, at least no one who's alive still."

Carth smiled back. "I can see that. She was… vicious." Nikita laughed at that. "You have no idea." Suddenly, she remembered one of the last lines of the datapad, and her happiness dimmed like a dying light. Glancing sidelong at Carth's face, she asked, "How many years has she been gone now?"

Carth's smile vanished almost instantly. He looked down. "Five in two weeks," he whispered. It was obvious he knew to the day how long the woman he loved had been missing, and from the tone of Revan's message about five years, he was obviously worried sick.

Nikita felt pity for him for a second, but then looked at him again. From his stooped position, it was obvious he didn't yet have plans to follow her sister. A sick wave of anger swept through her, and she snapped, "Oh, pick up your head. Come on!"

He looked up. "What?" he asked confusedly. Nikita looked up at the ceiling exasperatedly as if asking for some divine help. "Get the old crew together! Have a meeting! Let's go get her!" Carth looked skeptical at her sudden enthusiasm. "We don't have a ship. We don't know where she went."

Nikita could have laughed at him if she didn't think it would make him clam up again. "Hello? We have the fracking _Hawk_! That's all the ship we need!" Atton looked swiftly at her. "Will we all fit?" he asked.

Nikita rounded on him, and he grimaced. No one liked to be on the brunt of the Exile's annoyance. "We'll make room!" she snapped. "I'm going with Onasi after my sister, no questions asked." Mandalore smiled at her. "That a girl. I can see how you two are related. Surprised I didn't get it earlier."

Carth's worry had turned to determination. Apparently, Nikita had pushed just the right buttons to turn his nerves into a burning hope. "Well, we can get a hold of three of the old crew right now," he announced. With a flourish, he produced a remote from the same drawer he had produced the datapad. They all stared at it, uncomprehending.

Carth pressed a button, and a large holoscreen lit up on the far wall. Mandalore whistled. "Nice toys, Republic," he said appreciatively. In the holo, Nikita could see three people – an older man, a Cathar, and a young and pretty Jedi. Figuring she should let Carth handle it, she stepped off to the side.

"Hey! Bastila!" Carth yelled. The younger Jedi turned around. With a start, Nikita recognized her, and sidled off to the side to hide behind Atton. "Carth!" she said, surprised. Yep, same Bastila. Formal, poised, and that accent that grated on Nikita's eardrums. "I though we agreed no contact unless it was an emergency?"

"This is one," he said grimly. He quickly explained the situation to Bastila, who was looking more stunned by the second. "I heard about the attack, but I never realized…" Bastila murmured. "So the lass's sister is here now?" the old man asked curiously, obviously looking for a glimpse of Nikita, who was using her shortness to hide behind Atton. She did not like the public eye – years of being in exile had taught her to keep her head low at all times, a habit that was only just starting to fade with the return of the Force.

It was Canderous who answered the old man's question. "Yeah, that's right, Bindo." Bastila did a double take. "Canderous!" Even through the fuzzy holo, Nikita could tell she was blushing. She smiled broadly. _Now what would make Little Miss Perfect blush?_ she thought wickedly.

Juhani fixed the awkward situation with a smooth "It is nice to see you again, Canderous." Atton yawned, causing all heads to turn to the pilot. "Enough with the pleasantries. Contact the others. We don't want to saty here forever." His obnoxiousness earned him a sound whack on the back of the head from the handle of Nikita's lightsaber.

Carth laughed, though Nikita could see pain etched on his face. She would have bet all the credits she had that her sister had once done something similar to him. _He really misses her_, she thought. Her determination doubled.

"Well, I gotta contact Zaalbar. Mission can be here in five minutes, but I don't know how fast that carpet can get a ride off Kashyykk," Carth told the three Jedi. "Come to the Citadel Station as soon as you can."

"Right. See you soon, Carth." The holo fizzed out.

Onasi turned to face the trio again. He clapped his hands together. "All right then. Come on, we have a rescue to organize!" Nikita gave a true, honest smile. "Now you're speaking our language."

---

Later that night, Nikita lay restless on her bunk in the Hawk. She could hear the _slip-flip_ of a deck of cards that told her Atton was sleepless too. Unable to get comfortable or still her mind, she rose from her bunk and slipped silently towards the medbay.

She saw Atton in the main hold, sitting by himself but playing as if for two people. In her mind, she heard his words from what seemed like eons ago: _They won't be able to hurt you. Because you'll be here, playing pazaak with me._ Her heart yearned to go join him, knowing exactly what would happen in the dark desertedness of the _Hawk_. Her brain, though, resisted. _It would bring too much pain to you both. It can't ever be_, she thought, and turned away from him towards the medbay. If she had looked back, she might have seen the tensing of his shoulders and the suddenly angry grip of his hands on the deck.

But she didn't, and continued on. When she got to the medbay, she felt the now-familiar tightening of her chest in emotional agony.

Mira lay perfectly still, seemingly asleep if not for the fact that her eyes were wide open and staring at something Nikita couldn't see with an apparent horror. Once you saw the eyes, the illusion of sleep disappeared. Her hands were clenched so tight and unmoving her bloodred nails were digging into her palms. Mira's mouth was slightly open, and if you looked at it at the right angle, you could tell the painted lips were opening for a scream. Nikita could never look at her for long – the overwhelming despair weakened her mind immensely.

If Mira's state devastated her mind, Bao-Dur's was a physical sort of pain. Barely stable despite combined efforts from Visas, Atton, Mical, and herself, the hole in his stomach remained. The edges were sealed, but the flesh had been cut away. Nikita had no way of knowing what had been removed unless she reopened the wound, which might kill him. So for now Bao lay there, arm barely flickering, dead-faced, with a hole right through him. Every time she saw him, Nikita felt like she had a hole through her too.

She squeezed her eyes shut, but tears slid out down her cheeks anyway. Touching each of their unmoving faces, she dropped to her knees. Since she was a Jedi, she wasn't much of a believer in higher powers, but now she prayed to any one that might be out there for their safety. On a more earthly level, Nikita whispered brokenly into the stillness of the ship, "Please, please let us be able to find Rev. She's the only one who can fix this. Please, Rev, please still be alive…"

**So there you have it. Now, where is Revan? What does Nikita have against Bastila? What shall happen to Mira and Bao?**

**--xIgnoranceIsBlissx--**


	3. Red

**As you can see, this is also changed. Things will progress from this point.**

_**Sister: Red**_

Nikita lounged on a couch in Carth's apartment in Citadel Station, staring at the pale cream walls in utter lethargy. She felt incredibly useless. It had been almost two weeks since she had arrived on the station and she had done absolutely nothing. All she had done was watch Carth reunite with the old crew of the _Hawk_ and have some awkward, maybe mildly entertaining conversation with them.

Bastila, Juhani, and Jolee had arrived first, seeing as they were right below on the surface. From what Nikita could tell, they had escaped Darth Nihilus' attention by only using the Force in extreme emergencies, otherwise utterly abandoning their connection to it. The total devastation and death of Telos' surface had masked them from his ravenous hunger.

Juhani was very nice to her, though she held Atton in some contempt. According to Nikita's obnoxious pilot, she thought him, 'the exact same thing as Carth, only with a much worse attitude.' When asked why she disliked Carth, she only gave Nikita a very long, sad look. However, she was helpful whenever Nikita asked and amiable despite the younger Jedi's closeness to the pilot. The Cathar, apparently, owed a debt to Revan and in connection, her younger sister.

Jolee, in contrast, looked pained whenever he looked at her. For almost four days, she couldn't figure out why. Finally, she cornered the old man and blew up at him.

"Why do you look at me so oddly!?" she shrieked one day when he gave her yet another indecipherable glance. "What have I _done_!?" She had stared at him, green eyes wild with frustration and confusion. She was distinctly aware, suddenly, that this Jedi might not approve of her practice of embracing emotion for good rather than rejecting it. However, Jolee had looked levelly at her, and had said in a voice as measured as his stare, "You are so like Revan, in everything you do – the way you give looks, your mannerisms, everything. And I have this guilt from telling her to try to remember you. I know she would have left anyway… but it's not a thought that lets me sleep well at night, lass. Nor does it make it better to know that if she had stayed here, you would have come to her, soon enough."

Nikita stopped questioning Jolee's quirks after that.

The third Jedi to arrive in that group had, of course, been Bastila. Nikita had been sitting on a chair in the other room as Carth greeted her, dredging up Academy memories. She remembered Bastila well enough – the question was if Bastila remembered her. She sincerely hoped so, as one of Nikita's favorite pastimes had been messing with the trying-too-hard-to-be-perfect Jedi.

"Nikita Vaas…" she heard Bastila saying. "The name should ring a bell, but I can't…" That was when she entered the room and saw the blonde Jedi smirking at her from her position on the chair. Bastila's eyes seemed to pop out of her head. "_YOU!_" she yelled loudly, enough to make Carth start.

Nikita examined her nails. "Me," she said uninterestedly, remembering exactly how to get under Bastila's skin. Bastila glared daggers at her. "YOU, you… the girl who was disobedient in everything she did, left the Academy to go be a soldier and got herself exiled, YOU stopped Darth Traya, YOU are Revan's sister?"

Nikita ignored Bastila for several more seconds to let the other woman's anger hit a peak. Then she looked up, and said boredly, "That was a really long sentence, you know that?"

She watched with glee as Bastila turned red. Bao-Dur had always said that was one of her talents, getting under people's skin. Bastila, with her rigidness to the Code, was especially easy to drive up the wall. It was the most fun she had had in days, and she tried to ignore the sorrow that ripped through her as Bao's name came to mind.

As Bastila attempted to compose herself – Nikita could practically hear _there is no emotion, there is peace_ from Bastila's mind – she went in for one last blow. "Hey, rumor on the Outer Rim was you fell to the Dark Side for a bit." She saw the blush, and knew she had hit the right button. She finished, "I never believed it – you were too much of a priss to ever kill anyone, even if you were as red as Malak."

Bastila's jaw dropped. A muffled snort came from Carth, who had watched the whole scene with interest and was obviously trying not the burst into laughter. While Bastila mouthed at her wordlessly, Nikita rose, and strode towards the door. In the frame, she paused, and said over her shoulder, "We're going to be great friends, I can feel it. Just like old times, huh?" and ran out of the room before she burst into hysterical laughter.

It had been ugly for a bit, the 5th day of their arrival. Together, they had deemed only Jedi should go on the mission to cut their losses (plus, according to Carth, the more people who got hurt, the more Revan's temper would explode, which was an apparently ugly experience that made her entire first crew wince). However, Revan's old crew flat-out refused to not come. On top of that, after testing each of Nikita's students, Bastila had decided that they were simply not strong enough to go. With waves and waves of opposition, they finally decided on a crew; Carth, who was a given; Atton, because Nikita flat-out refused to leave him on Telos; Mical, because Bastila wanted to 'train him properly'; Mission, who pointed out she would stow away anyhow; Nikita; Bastila; Juhani; Jolee; Canderous, who seemed to have some sort of debt to Revan; and HK, who actually seemed excited at finding his old master. ("Statement: Do you think Master Revan will let me blast the meatbags who have kept her away for so long?" "Yeah, pretty sure." "Excited Reply: Excellent! I will prepare my various weaponry for meatbag extermination!")

Besides Bastila, who still nursed the Academy grudge of Nikita daring to be so rebellious, and Mical disliking Atton and vice versa, the new crew meshed nicely. Carth and Atton agreed on a plan to split piloting hours so each of them could actually get some sleep on this journey ("Wow, what an improvement!" said Atton sarcastically). Mical could actually tolerate Jolee's endless stories about destiny and love, and so Jolee was once again occupied by someone who he could prattle to for hours on end. Juhani took on Mical as her protégé, though with much more grace to Nikita than Bastila had done. Mission and Nikita had clicked like long-lost twins; the easily distractible, hyper, goofy young Twi'lek was practically Nikita's soul sister.

There had, of course, been issues about what to do with Mira and Bao. After yet another effort had been made to heal them, this time with three additional Jedi, and the attempt failed, it was determined they couldn't possibly remain on the ship and that they would be transferred to the Citadel Station medical center. Nikita, though, was in paralyzing terror that Mira or Bao would die before their return, alone with strangers. That was part of the reason T3 and Visas were not going. The Miraluka had graciously offered to stay behind to care for them, and T3 had agreed to broadcast to the _Hawk_ if Nikita wanted to check up on them or if there was an emergency. Still, she worried. None of them could diagnose Mira's condition, or explain why Bao's wound would not heal. What if even Revan couldn't fix them? A shudder of terror shot through her every time she thought about it, and Nikita stubbornly shoved it from her mind.

With the newest crew of the _Hawk_ assembled, they met in Carth's office to plot their course. When Nikita and Atton arrived late from visiting their two injured comrades, the others were arguing over the meaning of Revan's little rhyming clue.

"Well, it's really common sense," pointed out Juhani. "Where would any long term space traveler go to get cheap food and weapons in abundance?"

Atton let out a loud 'HA' which earned him stares from the others, who had just noticed he and Nikita's appearance. He looked at them like they were insane, then sighed, "Come on, are you really all such goody-goodies?" Bastila glared at him, and replied sourly, "Not all of us have such… risqué pasts." Nikita shot daggers with her eyes at the annoying prim Jedi, but Atton brushed it off and continued, "The one place where anyone who wanted cheap crap would go is Nar Shaddaa."

Bastila's jaw dropped. "NO!" she cried. "Surely no proper Jedi has set foot on that scum world in decades!" Nikita leaded forward in her chair to look Bastila right in the eyes. "I did," she said dangerously, "and my crew, and we found a Jedi Master there. Aren't _we_ proper Jedi, or do you want us all to be just like you? Because _that_ worked out so well with the destruction of the Order."

Before Bastila could say anything, Jolee cut in, "And the lass never exactly fit the 'proper Jedi' mold, now did she?" Nikita smiled grimly at his words, thinking, _way to break the mold, Rev. Maybe you haven't changed._

Carth, as unofficial head of the whole operation, nodded in consent. "Nar Shaddaa it is. We'll try to find a trail there." Mission squealed happily. "YES! They'll actually sell dangerous weapons to me there!" Before anyone could protest, she had raced out of the room to find her credit stash. Carth dashed after her, shouting, "Don't you dare! If you blast off a lekku or something Dustil will KILL me!" Dustil, Carth's son from his first marriage, was Mission's boyfriend and a fledgling Jedi under Bastila who would be helping Visas care for Mira and Bao.

The others filed out one by one, Nikita last of all. Carth walked by in the opposite direction, heading for his apartments after he failed to catch Mission. He didn't look at her, but Nikita could have sworn she heard him murmur, "Hang on, beautiful, we're coming."

---

Nikita and Bastila stood nose to nose in the women's dormitories, frustration burning in each one's eyes. Bastila had barged in, demanding to know why Nikita had trained her apprentices to let emotion help them, instead of suppressing it entirely. Apparently Bastila had an issue with Nikita's blatant violation of the Jedi Code.

"Bastila, I'll train Atton and Mical as I see fit – they're MY students!" Nikita yelled. "If I say emotion helps them, it helps them!" Bastila snorted, infuriating the hotheaded blonde all the more. "Yes, of course," Bastila said acidly. "We all want them to be trained by a woman kicked out of Order by the Council."

_SLAP!_ The sound of Nikita's palm hitting Bastila's cheek shattered the heated air. "I had. No. CHOICE!" she yelled, and stormed out of the room.

With tears stinging at her eyes, Nikita ran to the cargo hold. She had a secret place there, hidden behind the 'boxes' in the netted walls. One didn't really hold boxes – it was a hologram, with a large hollow space she had filled with pillows behind it. At one point, it probably had been a smuggler's hiding space. Now, though, it was her own personal hideaway for when she needed to get away from the rest of the universe.

Now she crawled in there, stuffed her face in a lavender pillow, and began to cry. She had worked hard, so very hard, to reconnect with the Force and be a Jedi again. And now this bratty little princess who had _fallen_, for Force's sake, was accusing her of corrupting her students? Nikita had never gone over to the Dark Side – she at least had that going for her. And look what the Jedi Code had done for the council! They were all dead now; maybe that was a sign that new teachings were needed.

Suddenly, footsteps sounded on the floor of the cargo hold. Nikita quieted her sobs, and held perfectly still. Only one other person knew of this place, and she would prefer to keep it that way.

"Master Nikita?" Inwardly, she groaned. It was Mical.

"Are you in here?" he called. "I wanted to make sure you were ok… I saw you running by and you looked upset…" When he received no answer, he added, "I'm here, if you want me," and left.

Nikita lay flat on her back and stared at the low ceiling. Mical was a sweet kid, and not half bad looking. But she already had a problem with having closer connections than a Jedi should, and she didn't want to lead the boy on with false hope. It wasn't fair to him, since her heart belonged to someone else.

She stifled a sudden scream as a face appeared overhead. Atton grinned down at her as she made a face. "How did you get in here so quietly?" she whisper-shouted. "Hey, I was a scoundrel. Sneaking's a part of the job!" he informed her cockily.

She sat upright so Atton could squeeze in next to her. The pilot-turned-Jedi Sentinel clambered in and made himself comfortable. "So why'd you slap Bastila, huh?" he inquired. "It's usually Mira who loses her temper on idiots. I thought you weren't supposed to do that as a Jedi." Nikita flinched at Mira's name, her haunted wide eyes shimmering in Nikita's mind.

Nikita sighed in sorrow. "She…" she took a deep breath to stop the tears that pricked in her green eyes, failed miserably, and said in a rush, "ShesaidIwasahorribleteachertoyouandMicalbecauseIgotkickedoutoftheOrderandnowI'mwonderingifshe'srightandifIshouldbeteachingyouatall!"

With that, she shoved her face back into the pillow and cried again. Screw looking weak, she _hurt_.

Atton stayed silent as she got herself under control, and then said softly, "Don't listen to her. She's just getting under your skin because she doesn't want to believe you're better than _her_, the Jedi princess. If it helps, I think you're a great teacher just because you know what it's like to get kicked out."

She raised her head a little. His face was close to hers. Much too close. So close she could kiss him…

No. Bastila already doubted her, she couldn't trust herself with love and where she was going she could lose Atton – or he could lose her. "I have to see Jolee, I forgot," she said quickly and pulled away from him. As she clambered out of the hidey-hole, she missed the look of disappointment on Atton's face as he contemplated what he had done wrong.

---

As Nikita wandered through the ship, she saw bits and pieces of what Revan's life on this very vessel must have been like. HK, the familiar old psychobot, could be regularly found arguing the merits of what he called 'wanton slaughter of the finest degree' with Jolee as opposed to mercy. Mandalore – or Canderous, as she had began to call him after hearing everyone else doing so – was often wherever Carth was, swapping Revan stories or talking about old battles. Juhani, Bastila, and Mical usually could be found in the medbay, discussing the Force and the history of the Jedi (_boring,_ Nikita thought). Mission, the happy little ball of life on the ship, bounced between Nikita and Atton for girl talk and games of pazaak where she regularly lost credits just to steal them back.

The reactions to returning to the ship had been varied. Bastila and Juhani had looked like they would have gladly taken another vessel, whereas the rest of Revan's old crew dashed around, pointing out places of memory and objects of importance.

As for herself, she often thought about her sister's life on board. Had they slept in the same bunk? Had she too found the cargo hold hideaway? Had the copilot's chair been her favorite spot, too? It had been so long since she had spoken to Revan, and yet she felt as close to her as she had before the Wars.

It was horrible for Nikita that the Wars had torn their family apart as surely as it had torn Carth's. Their parents had died in a bombing conducted by Malak soon after Revan's fall, she knew. And the fall itself had torn an uncrossable hole between the sisters. Consumed by a need for power, Revan had no use for a powerless Exile with no touch of the Force – not that Nikita would have joined the Sith anyhow.

But despite the fall that killed their parents and separated them for almost a decade, Nikita _missed_ Revan. She missed the feeling of being protected by her indomitable big sister. She missed the loud, happy laugh and the cheerful voice. She missed the whip of the black ponytail, the warmth of the deep brown eyes. If this journey held one personal thing for her, it was that Nikita wanted to see her sister again so badly it hurt.

---

The _Hawk_ touched down on Nar Shaddaa almost a week after their departure. The dock owner recognized her (or at least he recognized her lightsabers), and let her pass. She was flanked by Atton, her trustee, and Carth, who she knew she wouldn't detach from her side until Revan was found. Atton had discarded his Jedi robes for the familiar ribbed jacket for purpose of blending in. Nikita had followed suit, donning a beige tunic and leggings characteristic of an average citizen. Carth, on the other hand, had whipped out an appallingly hideous orange jacket.

"What IS that?!" she had asked in horror upon seeing it. Carth had looked rather offended, holding the jacket close and answering, "It's a jacket. See the sleeves and the zipper?" She gasped, "That's the most hideous thing I have ever SEEN!" Now Carth really did look offended. "Well, your sister likes it!" he snapped, as if that justified the unbearable ugliness of the _thing_ he was by this point wearing. "Is she color blind!?" Nikita threw up her hands and left the cockpit.

Now they walked together, a decidedly odd trio. She noted Atton stood a little farther from her than normal, obviously remembering her rejection a few days earlier. Shefelt a pang of guilt over hurting him that really had no business in her head. She brushed it away and tried to focus on her mission. _Remember, it will only hurt you both. Don't give in_.

Suddenly, a man with short-cropped blonde hair and ice blue eyes ran up to them. "Excuse me," he asked them desperately. "My sister, Lashowe, she was a Jedi like you, have you seen her? Is she alive?" His pale gaze searched their faces. The eyes alighted on Carth as the Republic admiral spoke. "Lashowe?" he asked perplexedly. "I know that name, but she was no Jedi. She was a Sith I once saw years ago."

The panic in the man's eyes was suddenly replaced by recognition. "You passed the test," he informed a very confused Nikita. "Come with me – my wife and I have a message for you." She took a tiny step back. "And why should I trust you again?" she asked icily. The man stared at Carth's disgusting jacket. "Because a Jedi woman told me to look for a man in an orange coat who knew who Lashowe was. Because this Jedi woman left a datapad for this man."

Carth sucked in a breath. "Lead on," he said eagerly, the hope flaming in his eyes once again.

They followed the mysterious man to an apartment deep within the city. It was well-sized, and spotless, probably due to the wife mentioned, Nikita reasoned. Overall, it was a very nice apartment for a couple living so deep within Nar Shaddaa. _But why live here if they can afford such a nice place?_ hissed the little voice of suspicion in Nikita's mind. _Unless they're hiding something… or from something…_

As soon as all four were inside, the man locked his door and drew the shades. "Hurry, please," he urged. "I'd rather not have the Exchange coming down on me for harboring two Jedi." He sat them on a couch, them lowered himself into a chair.

"My name is Tomo," he explained. "Lashowe is –was – actually my sister, and I had been looking for information about what happened to her, since she disappeared after the Mandalorian Wars. Five years ago a Jedi woman approached me with an offer. She said that she knew exactly what happened to my sister, and could prove it, but I had to do something in return. All I had to do was walk past the docks once daily and look for a man in an orange jacket. I had to ask him if he knew Lashowe the Jedi. If he said she was a Sith," here Tomo winced, obviously unhappy with the revelation Revan had given him, "I was to take him here, tell him the story, and give him this."

From a drawer in a table next to him, he drew a red datapad. He held it out to Carth, who snatched and read it hungrily, as though by reading it he could see Revan again, hear her, anything.

They waited in silence as he read and reread the words. Eventually, he handed it to Nikita, who read;

**Dear Carth and whoever he dragged with him,**

**I miss you, and I have only been gone a few weeks by this point. I write this as I prepare to leave Nar Shaddaa for the first world that may have clues. If you are reading this, then it's several years after the fact and you are finally coming after me.**

**As you can see, this datapad is red. There is a reason for this, I don't just like colors. I actually want to be found if I have been gone five years, because that means I am most likely in a lot of danger, and the galaxy is in even more. So, I have left a trail of datapads for you to follow my trail. This one is red, the next orange, and the succeeding ones yellow, green, blue, violet, pink, and white. The first was black, marking the start of the journey. When you find the white one (or whatever color has a cut off sentence, meaning I was caught), I can no longer help you. But those should get you on the right path after me.**

**Hopefully, my sister has shown up with you, because if she hasn't, it means she is a. dead, b. captured, or c. working for the enemy (pray to God it's not the last one, or you will all shortly be dead). Also hopefully, if what little precognition I have is not wrong, someone here should help you more than you know.**

**I love you. I promise I won't fall to the Dark Side. If you got Bastila to come and she's still a priss, tell her I say to get the stick out of her ass.**

**Yours forever and ever,**

**REVAN**

Nikita stared at the little red box. Amazing how something so simple could be the start of a trail that could undoubtedly lead them all over the galaxy and beyond.

She dragged her gaze down to one line of text beneath the signature:

**P.S. Here's your second clue – I once saved some people here, an ancient lover lost one dear.**

She wrinkled her brow at it, but was distracted by the tinkling of ice cubes in glasses.

An incredibly pale, redheaded woman glided in with drinks for them all. She was very tiny and thin, but had a look of intelligence around her delicate face. She was captivatingly beautiful, to boot. Tomo raised a hand to rest on her shoulder. "May I introduce my wife, Mir'ren," he said with obvious pride. Atton and Carth inclined their heads to her.

Mir'ren smiled at them, though Nikita noticed it looked a bit forced. It dawned on her that she _knew_ that face from somewhere, she just couldn't remember where. The woman moved around the small room, giving glasses to the other guests. As she walked, Nikita suddenly recalled words Kreia (that name hurt to think of too) had spoken to her weeks ago on Peragus. _"Your stance, you walk tells me you are a Jedi."_ Nikita saw her own walk reflected in the smaller woman's.

Finally, it hit her who this woman was. She looked at Tomo, and asked sweetly, "Oh, when did you two meet?" He said happily, "Just about two years ago. We married a year past."

Nikita widened her false grin; the dates had confirmedher suspicions. She turned to Mir'ren, and said in a sugar-coasted voice, "I see. And when were you planning on telling your husband you are a Jedi?"

---

The woman knew she was locked in. She cursed herself for the hundredth time for being so stupid as to chase the Shadow into the building. _Of course it was a trap. Of course you fell for it, you _idiot.

She hunched her shoulders, concentrating on healing the various cuts and bruises all over her body before they became infected. While she worked, she mused on what kind of building this could be. It was black like all the others, but it was windowless, which was very different. She cursed herself another time for not noticing more details but one: a large rinren painted on the red door.

At least that helped her some. It was obvious she was in an important building. _But what important building has no windows?_ she thought to herself. She knew these people liked to look at their own vast realm, so a lack of windows was highly unusual.

Though the door had disappeared as soon as she had run through it and the walls were much too thick to break through, she could still reach out with the Force. Part of her was utterly terrified of doing so (what is they tried to get into her mind?), but reason told her she must to assess the situation.

So the woman sent one sole tendril of the Force snaking through the building. She caught traces of Occupants, obviously, and a couple Shadows. But it wasn't until her tendril traveled up maybe thirty feet that she realized why there were no windows.

She expanded the tendril, hoping what she sensed was wrong. But it wasn't. There were dozens of sentients held there, some she knew but most she didn't. Some were like her, in utter fear, and many were weeping. But a few of them, set farther away, were flanked by Occupants and one or two Shadows. These ones were screaming for mercy and salvation, and the Shadows were so close it was almost like the victims and Shadows were one.

The woman pulled back her Force to her, feeling sick. Of course there were no windows. Of course a Shadow would come here.

Revan was a prisoner in an occupation facility.

**Oho, so the plot thickens. Meet Mir'ren, a Jedi with secrets that are bigger than most… Let's not forget Revan. Where is she? What are Shadows and Occupants? An occupation facility? Yup, read and hopefully review.**

**Michaela**


	4. Orange

**Revampment concluded. Continuation beginning.**

_**Sister: Orange**_

The tray in Mir'ren's hands fell to the floor. The glass tumblers shattered into pieces as they hit the tile, just like the life Mir'ren had tried to lead.

Nikita smiled grimly as Mir'ren whirled to look at Tomo. "It's a lie!" she cried wildly. Her flaming red hair danced like fire around her white face. "All a lie, Tomo love, because why would I lie to you?"

"Because it gave you a reason to be safe on Nar Shaddaa, where your Force could be masked easily," Nikita drawled. She picked up a shard of broken glass and examined it, looking at her warped reflection in the curved glass. "The deadness of Nar Shaddaa hid you from Nihilus. You ran here as soon as he came for your world, didn't you?"

The blonde Jedi looked at Mir'ren. The thin woman was shaking, eyes darting nervously from the guests to the doors, obviously gauging her chances of escape.

"How did you know?" That was Atton, looking incredulously at Nikita. She snorted, and leaned over to flick him on his forehead. "I find your _and_ Mira's _and_ Bao's _and_ Mical's Force ability and you ask me how I know?" she demanded, insulted. "This one's even trained properly – I could spot her a mile away." Looking around the apartment, and added, "I _knew_ I felt something weird about this house." What she kept to herself was that Mir'ren's Force affinity was striking a chord on the raw wound that was her own connection to it.

"Mir'ren?" Tomo's voice was hoarse with disbelief. "You… lied to me?" Mir'ren shook her head frantically and opened her mouth to speak, but Nikita spoke again. "I remember you now," she informed her. "You were on Dantooine with me and my sister for a while. But then you were shipped off to some other random planet to be a chronicler." She looked at the pale woman whose face was getting paler by the second. "You were really nerdy back then – you grew up a lot. You're actually pretty now."

Carth snorted, and quickly tried to disguise it as a sneeze. Mir'ren blanched, then collapsed onto a chair. "Okay," her muffled voice came. "I admit it. I was a Jedi. Happy?"

"No," Nikita told her. "I'm not. Do you know how many of us are left?" Mir'ren raised her head. The cheeks were now streaked with tears. "How many?" she whispered, obviously dreading the answer.

Nikita held up her fists. "Well, there's me," she said, and raised a finger. "You." Another finger. "Atton, Bao, Mira, Mical." Four more fingers. "Bastila, Jolee, Juhani, Dustil." Four fingers. "And Revan." Nikita lifted a foot. All of Nikita's fingers were raised plus her foot, and she looked between them at Mir'ren.

"Only eleven…" she murmured. Her brown eyes flitted to the datapad. "And one of them is missing," Carth informed her grimly. "And two more are in various stages of death back on Telos," Atton added, glaring at the woman. Nikita flinched and lowered her limbs.

Mir'ren bit her lip and stole a glance at her husband. Tomo was gripping the arms of his chair very hard. "You liar…" he whispered. "So dangerous, we could have both been killed… The Exchange, or this Dark Lord…"

Her brown eyes got very watery. "Don't you see, though!?" Mir'ren burst out in a voice too loud for her little body as she leapt to her feet. "There's only eleven of us left. E-LEV-EN. I couldn't tell anyone about me, I'd suffer the same fate! At least here I had a chance of surviving and passing on the Jedi way to someone, anyone!"

The room was silent except for the steady _drip… drip…_ of water off of the tray on the floor.

Nikita stared at her. "So you hid like a coward while all of them died?" she asked bitterly. Mir'ren snorted. "I see you're still here!" she retorted meanly. Nikita's temper flared dangerously. _"That's because until a few weeks ago I couldn't feel the Force!"_ she shrieked. Mir'ren fell back, cowering in the wake of Nikita's temper. "And, for the record, I'm alive because I killed Sion, killed Nihilus, AND killed Traya!" she screamed at the terrified redhead. "While you sat here playing house, I risked my life and the lives of those I care about to keep this galaxy alive! And now we're going to find the one person who might be able to keep it alive past this year and _you're going to sit here and pretend you're not a Jedi!? You COWARD!_"

Something in the redhead seemed to snap, because she stood up straighter and glared at Nikita. "I remember you, Nikita Vaas," she said coldly. "I remember you went to war… like I did."

"_What?_" Nikita gasped. "I never saw you… never knew…" "That I followed Revan too? That they shipped me to Coruscant to try and stop me from leaving, that I joined anyway? That my research made me an excellent battle plan technician, that it was I who helped Revan lay the schematics for Malachor V?" Mir'ren retorted. She drew herself up to her full height, and continued, "I have just as much blood on my hands as you do. I am no coward."

The room was dead silent. Atton and Carth looked warily at Nikita, unsure as to how she would act to this latest revelation. Tomo sat in his chair, face in his hands, obviously horrified by what was unfolding before him. Atton felt a flash of pity for the man – his dreams of any type of normal life had probably just been smashed as surely as the glasses on the floor.

It was obvious they were all bracing for a brawl. Mir'ren's hand twitched incessantly, and Atton was running his thumb along the hilt of his orange saber. But Nikita, as usual, surprised them all.

It was as shocking as when she had danced for Vogga, as stunning as when she had trusted Visas, as unexpected as when she informed Atton that she still trusted him despite his bloody past.

Nikita had bolted forward and hugged the slight woman tightly.

"I am so sorry," she murmured into Mir'ren's shoulder. "I didn't realize… you never did go back, did you? I didn't… you're just like me…" Mir'ren awkwardly patted Nikita on the shoulder as the blonde pulled away. "It's perfectly all right," Mir'ren assured her. "But… if I might ask…" she was appealing to Carth now, "may I come with you? You're going after Revan," she swallowed, "and I owe her one for letting me leave without a fight after the Wars."

Carth looked genuinely surprised at the offer. Atton, who disliked new crew members ever since the addition of Mical to their little band, asked sourly, "And why should we bring you? It's crowded enough as it is." Nikita gave him a poisonous glare which he pointedly ignored. If she wouldn't kiss him, then she would get the silent treatment, apparently.

Mir'ren didn't seem to take offense. "You want to take me because I know a lot about the Sith and Jedi history, which Revan is apparently referencing in her clues," she told him sweetly. Atton's scowl deepened, but it was obvious he conceded defeat because he crossed his arms and sat back grumpily in his chair.

Nikita sidled up to him and sat on his knee, much to the surprise of all present. "Stop being such a little kid, Atton," she whispered, poking his forehead. "Why?" he asked petulantly, obviously doing so just to irritate her (she could see the traces of a smile at the corners of his mouth). Leaning in so she could whisper in his ear and no one else could hear, she hissed, "Because little kids shouldn't see pretty grown up ladies wearing skimpy dancer's outfits."

His arm shot out to catch her wrist, but she danced out of the way. The momentary rougish grin was replaced by a childlike pout, though Nikita could tell he laughed behind the sad expression. She laughed out loud. The sound rang through the otherwise quiet room who had been watching the exchange. Carth bore an amused expression laced with loss, while Mir'ren looked shocked and slightly offended. Tomo did not react; his face was still in his hands.

Mir'ren seemed to notice this, because she inched over to his chair and knelt beside it. "Love?" she murmured. "Do you care if I go with them?" When he did not answer, she laid a hand on the sleeve of his shirt.

Tomo's head snapped up. "Go," he growled. "Get out of here, you lying scheming schutta. I don't even want to see you again, you Sith's daughter." His eyes burned with anger as he stared down his wife.

Mir'ren recoiled as if she had been slapped. Once again, though, the woman straightened up in defiance. "Very well," she said coldly. "Let me gather my things and I'll be gone." She swept out of the room without another glance at her fickle husband. Nikita, Carth, and Atton stared in her wake.

There was a very awkward silence left in place of Mir'ren, her distraught spouse sitting with those who exposed her. As Tomo was obviously no longer paying attention to anything they did, Nikita silently drew a datapad out from the little pouch at her hip. Silently, she began to type to Carth and Atton.

_So what do you think of our new little addition?_ she typed, and passed the datapad to the two men. They held onto it for a minute, then gave it back to her with two answers.

I don't trust her. She was too quick to deny what she was and then turned around too quickly for comfort. Seems like she was manipulating the poor sap over there for safety. Damn Jedi… Frack, I can't say that anymore, can I? That was obviously Atton's answer. Though it was laced with his usual skepticism and sarcasm, he made a valid point about Mir'ren's trustworthiness.

Carth's was a little different. **She seems all right. I don't really trust any Jedi (no offense), but as far as Jedi go I like her. Plus, we could use her knowledge. We're going to be digging in ancient Sith history here. I have to agree with Atton on one point, though. She was definetly manipulating her husband.**

Nikita nodded, and replied with an answer of her own. _Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't give her a snowball's chance in the _Hawk's_ hyperdrive. But I think she'll be loyal out of necessity. Don't forget Revan's message about someone here helping us more than we know. I doubt she means Mopey McGloomsome over there._

She handed them the datapad again. Atton smirked and Carth tried to suppress a grin of mirth as Mir'ren reentered the sitting room. She carried a small cloth bag of her personal effects on her back. However, in her right hand was the proudly gleaming hilt of a double bladed lightsaber.

"I'm ready," she said quietly. Nikita nodded, and motioned for Carth and Atton to rise. With a brief "thank-you" to Tomo, the four left the apartment for the streets of Nar Shaddaa. And from the alleyway bordering it, a shadowed figure slunk into the building. There was business to take care of.

---

Back on the ship, Mir'ren's arrival had created an uproar.

The idea of another Jedi to supplement their little band was welcome, but it was cleer very few people trusted her. Ironically, Bastila and Nikita were the only ones who could vouch for her, glaring at one another as they defended the redheaded Jedi. Mir'ren stood uncertainly behind Nikita, obviously unsure of what she should say – _if_ she should say anything, even.

"If we trust her, we could be bringing the Sith knocking on our door!" Canderous thundered. Jolee nodded, looking solemn. "He's right, lass," he said. "We can't afford trust right now." Their argument had won the support of most of the crew. Atton had been joined by Mission and HK, both of whom did not want anything to compromise their search for Revan (or in HK's case, 'Master').

Even Juhani and Mical looked almost convinced. Looking apologetically at Nikita, Mical said, "I don't think we should risk having another Kreia." Nikita drew back, the name like a slap to the face. Atton glowered at Mical for his tactless maneuver, but said nothing as he and Juhani edged towards the opposition.

Bastila was losing ground fast with her 'trust the Jedi as a Jedi' argument, so Carth stepped in. "Look," he said flatly. "It's not a matter of trust right now. It's a matter of whether she can help us find Revan. And right now, she can, because I doubt any of us know anything about ancient lovers."

The hubbub quieted down at that. All eyes turned to the slight Jedi, who blinked at them nervously. Finally, Mir'ren swallowed and said softly, "I'm not asking you to trust me. I'm asking you the let me help find her."

Canderous stared at her, his face somehow even more imposing without his Mandalore helmet. Slowly, he nodded his consent. With his capitulation, the rest of the opposition agreed too, welcoming Mir'ren to what Mission dubbed "Operation Rescue Revan."

Bastila seemed overjoyed at having another Jedi of 'proper beliefs' on board. Mir'ren quietly offered to teach Mical all she knew about Jedi histories, much to the younger man's delight. Slowly but surely, the crew dispersed, Mir'ren melding in among them. Soon just Atton, Carth and Nikita were left in the hold.

"Well, it's my shift, so I better get to the cockpit," Carth said awkwardly, slinking off before Nikita could make him stay. She and Atton stood at opposite sides of the room, looking askance at one another.

"'Kita…" he sighed. She tensed at the pet name for her. "'Kita, what are we?" She blinked at him. "We're humans… Jedi… what answer are you looking for?" she asked, playing nervously with a piece of her blonde hair.

"No, I mean what are _we_?" Atton asked, waving his hands at the two of them. In a few short strides he crossed the room, so he was looking right into Nikita's eyes from his eight inches above her. "What are we, the two of us? Are we master and student? Friends? Or are we…" As Nikita made to take a tiny step back, he caught her hand in his bigger one. His brown eyes looked directly into her green ones, asking for an answer.

Nikita opened her mouth to speak, but paused. What could she say? Tell him to let her go? Lie to him and tell him she felt nothing for him? Or open her heart to him, knowing all the while that one day it could destroy them both?

Atton's gaze burned into her. Finally, she moved her other hand to rest on top of the one gripping her right hand. Looking down at their interwoven fingers, she murmured, "I… I care for you more that anyone else on this ship. Can that be enough?"

To her surprise, Atton's other hand moved to jerk her chin up to face him again. Just as quickly, the rough fingers became soft. "No, it's not," he growled. "I don't want Jedi cryptics anymore, 'Kita. Now just tell me what we are, _please_." His eyes still gave her the softness that she loved when it appeared, the one she couldn't turn away from.

She blinked, feeling the tears pricking at the corner of her eyes again. "Atton…" she whispered. "I…" She paused again, so unsure, so uncertain of herself. What was wrong with her? Normally she was so confident, trusting herself and her instincts to handle whatever life threw at her. But this… this was out of her league. It was one thing she had never experienced. It was new territory, and it _scared_ her.

"I…" she choked, feeling the first of the tears begin to slip out of the corner of her eye. She felt his thumb brush her cheek, spreading the moisture between them. "I don't know," she whispered. "I can't tell."

The softness in his eyes grew angrier. His hold on her hands tightened. "Damn it, 'Kita, I'll _make_ you able to tell!" he spat. The hand on her chin slid around to the back of her neck, and Atton pulled her towards him as he bent to kiss her.

The shock of his lips on hers momentarily stunned her; it was like someone had hooked her up to an electric circuit. She gasped against his soft mouth, and pulled away suddenly. She retreated towards the hall to the cockpit, fingers brushing her lip.

Atton stared at her, angry and hurt. "I guess that answers the question, then," he said bitterly, turning to go. "No!" Nikita cried, unable to see him walk away from her like that. He looked at her, waiting. She racked her brain for the right words. "I feel… too much. It will hurt us both," she said brokenly, and flew to the cockpit.

---

Mir'ren wandered around the ship, her pale hand running against the cool metal. _It's not much_, she thought_, but it's certainly better than staying on Nar Shaddaa with nothing to do_. She had just finished talking with Bastila, tactfully leaving out her involvement in the Wars to earn the trust of the stuffy Jedi.

Now she was looking for Mical, going to fulfill her promise of telling him about all the history she knew. The clue 'an ancient lover' was certainly something that would get the boy to thinking. Though, Mir'ren noted to herself, it might just be a taunt.

It was clear the boy was besotted with the Exile, just as it was equally clear that the younger pilot claimed her. Mir'ren herself was curious to see who Nikita Vaas preferred, though she already suspected it was the pilot. She didn't exactly approve of the little love triangle, but she wasn't one to talk – she had been married, after all.

As she strode past the main hold, movement and lowered voices caught her eyes and ears. She glanced over, and raised an eyebrow at the heated but soft argument between the Exile and that obnoxious pilot – Atton? She couldn't remember the name. Shrugging, she proceeded to the medbay.

Mical was there as expected, busily working at the console there. Sidling up to his shoulder, she whispered, "What are you up to?" He jumped, but turned to her with a kind smile. "Mir'ren! I didn't see you there," he said. "I was just looking for more information on the conditions of some of our crewmates back on Telos."

"Ahhh," she said vaguely, looking at the screen. Comatose symptoms, gut wounds… she would have to find out more about these injured crewmates. "Well, I'm just here to make good on my promise. If you'll come with me now, I'll show you some of my databooks."

Mical smiled again, and nodded cheerfully. Mir'ren returned the friendly gesture, and strolled casually into the hallway, making for the rounded hallway that connected to the dormitories. She had made it almost to the entrance of the engine room when she heard the hissing intake of breath.

Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Mical staring into the main hold. She stood on tiptoe so she could peer over his shoulder at what had so hypnotized the blonde man's attention. She chuckled throatily. "Well, well, Exile," she murmured. "You _are_ still causing trouble."

The Exile and the pilot were kissing in the cargo hold. It was brief, and the Exile pulled away, but something she told the pilot made his face glow like a little kid's on Christmas. Mir'ren could practically feel the anger and jealousy radiating off Mical.

Once again, she strode up to his shoulder. Kindly, she asked, "Mical? Do you still want to see the records?"

---

Carth had been piloting the _Hawk_ by hand, like he had whenever there was downtime the first time on the ship. He liked to have something to do with his hands; it helped shut out whatever was eating at him for a while. Back then, it had been a combination of Morgana's death, revenge on Saul, Dustil's Sith training, and Revan's true identity. Now it was just one constant issue that had been persistently torturing him for half a decade: _Where was she? Why wasn't she home?_

His piloting had to shift to autopilot, though, when Nikita came zooming into the cockpit to fling herself into the copilot's chair. She hunched up in a little ball, her knees draw up to her chest and her eyes fixed out the window. Carth felt a wrenching in his chest. Her sister had done the same thing when her feelings or hopes were bruised.

"What's up?" he asked casually, pressing the controls to allow the ship to pilot itself. "Nothing," Nikita said to the window. Carth snorted. "Come on. You're acting like a child who got her cookie taken away."

She turned her head then to smile bemusedly. "My cookie taken away?" she asked dryly. Carth shrugged, and said, "That's what Revan used to tell me when she thought I was sulking on the past too much."

Nikita nodded, and returned to staring out the window. When she said nothing else, he resolved to let her be. Carth was about to put the ship back under his control when her voice echoed in the cockpit again. "What's she like now?"

He looked at her. She was still looking out the window, but a wistful look had entered her green eyes. Though they looked nothing alike, he could see her sister in the tilt of her chin, the set of her eyes, even the gazes she gave, though Nikita's came from piercing green eyes rather than shadowed brown ones. He realized, as he contemplated the similarities between two sisters, that it had been more than half a decade since the two had been together.

"She's… well, she's amazing," he began. "She takes the best traits of the Jedi – the charity, the desire for peace, and the kindness – and fuses it with emotion. Kind of like you, she thinks the traditional code is wrong. She thinks we need emotion. I guess that's why she has me.

"She's a fury fighting; she kept that from her war days. Don't ever try to cross those she cares about, because then any Jedi sensibility drops away and she kills with a cold fury. But despite that, she's more in touch with the light side than anyone I've ever seen. I think it's because she's seen the dark and was able to walk away.

"Beautiful, too, with a brain to boot. Brilliant at hacking and repairs and figuring out those weird dreams she and Bastila shared. She could destroy anyone with her sarcasm and wit alone. And on top of that, she had this way with people, of being able to get them to trust her with their whole self…"

Carth trailed off, looking at the blonde Jedi next to him. She nodded, a vague smile playing across her lips. "She's a lot like me, then?" she asked quietly. "When I left her, she was beginning to fall. She wasn't as much fun."

Carth nodded. He answered, "It's like Jolee said – you might not look alike, but you can't deny that you two are sisters to the core."

Nikita blinked rapidly, fighting the prickly feeling at the corners of her eyes that had become so much more common since Kreia's death. Carth waited for her to compose herself, and then asked, "What about before I knew her? Before she was Darth Revan?"

Nikita looked at him, puzzled. "She never talked to you about that?" Carth looked down. "We never had the time. She left before we were ready to reawaken the past. Or maybe she couldn't remember yet."

Nikita nodded slowly. Taking a deep breath, she said, "Then maybe the first thing I should tell you is that we're Telosian."

Carth's head snapped up. "_What_?" he gasped, staring at Nikita. "How could she not tell me this!?" "Probably she didn't remember," Nikita said vaguely. "I'm sure she would have.

"Either way, we're Telosian. I don't have many memories of me and Rev from then; the Jedi took her when I was only two. But at the Academy, we were inseparable. We were always in trouble for poking our noses where they weren't wanted… or for getting Kalam Rahd to do it for us." "Kalam?" Carth interrupted. "Turn the name around and it won't be hard to guess who," Nikita responded.

"Anyway, Rev always wanted to help, even when helping meant acting un-Jedi-ish. I idolized her. To me, she could do no wrong, couldn't be beaten, even. Kalam was totally in love with her, I think, but Revan had bigger dreams than leaving the Order to marry her second-rate friend. Vrook would always be yelling at us for meddling, but Master Zhar called us the Three Musketeers after a local Dantooinian legend." She looked down and said bitterly, "The old scow changed a lot from when we were Padawans, but Kreia trained my sister. I bet anything that's part of why she fell…

"Kavar came to train the two of us when I was thirteen and she was fifteen. Kalam _hated_ Kavar, because Rev respected him more than she respected Kalam. He got in trouble less for helping up and more for not being able to rein in his emotions well. We didn't care, though – we just wanted to be better Jedi and help more people.

"That same year, the Mandalorians invaded. Rev became closer to Kalam again once she realized that the council didn't want to go to war. He believed in her, and so did I. She was my big sister, how could she be wrong?

"Either way, we had left to join the Wars when she was eighteen and I was only sixteen." Carth gaped at her. "Eighteen?! She took control of the Republic forces when she was only eighteen!?" he gasped. Nikita nodded. "And you were only _sixteen_?" She nodded again. Carth leaned back in his chair and ran his fingers through his hair. "You Vaas women are crazy," he informed her. She giggled. "Yeah, so said Kalam when Revan began to win the battles.

"She made me a general because she felt she could trust me. Between the two of us, we did out best to keep the Mandalorians as far as possible from Telos. We wanted to keep our… our parents safe." She seemed to catch on the word parents, but forged on.

"She was my very best friend. We were too much alike not to argue and too much alike to ever hate one another. She was my counterpart, and I would have died to protect her. We had a Force bond that was so strong she felt when my Force was ripped away from me.

"But it was only after it was gone that I began to realize what had happened to her. Because we were bonded, I thought we were so close that nothing could go wrong. But once we were separate… once she wasn't a part of me anymore… I saw what she was becoming. That's when I left."

Nikita fell silent. Carth looked at her levelly, and said softly, "I lost family for years, too." Nikita nodded. "I know." They sat in companionable silence for a while, then Nikita asked, "Carth, what's it like to be in love?"

Carth smirked. "Thinking about a certain pilot, are we?" "No!" she said hastily. "It's just… I don't know. It's something I've never…" she trailed off.

Carth nodded. "Well, I've been in love twice. Once was my first wife, Dustil's mother, Morgana. I loved her to pieces, and it killed me when she died. But…" he looked at Nikita with deadly seriousness, "if I had met your sister first, or even when I was married, I would have turned around on Morgana without a second thought. Even though she was only twenty-one and I was almost thirty, I would have done anything to make her love me.

"There are some things that just click. Maybe in your head you know that doing something for love is wrong, but in your heart you know that all that matters is making this one person – this soul mate – happy. It's totally irrational, but you love them despite anything in the universe that tries to get you to change." He looked at the Jedi. "Does that answer your question?"

"Yes," she said softly. "Thanks Carth." She rose from her chair. It seemed like talking had improved her mood greatly. "I'm supposed to be chatting with Mission right now, actually. Thanks for the attention, though," she added.

"No problem," he called after her retreating form. He turned back to the controls, his thoughts all of a beautiful, laughing, dark haired woman snuggling into his chest in a tree on Kashyykk. He was about to return the ship to his own hands to stop the ache where his heart should be when Nikita came flying back into the cockpit.

"Carth!" she gasped, her face wild with excitement. "Mir'ren's solved the first clue!"

---

The crew sat around Mir'ren, watching her explain her interpretation. "We found the answer in the databooks I brought," she said, gesturing to herself and Mical. "It was obvious Revan was leaving a Jedi clue, and there have only been so many Jedi romances in history. Combine that with the planets Carth would have visited with her, and you get…"

She pointed at the galaxy map in the center of the hold. "Korriban."

"Of course," mused Bastila. "Shaela Nuur and Duron Qel-Droma fell in love during the Great Hunt. Guun Han Saresh left them on Korriban, and they died there." Juhani put in, "And did she not save those renegade students in the caves, Carth?"

Nikita froze at the mention of 'caves', but Carth nodded excitedly. "And she found the body there of Duron!" he exclaimed. "We've got it! That's where her next clue is!"

"No it's not." All eyes turned to Nikita. They looked confused until she said hollowly, "It's in the tomb. A tomb of a True Sith, I think."

"Wait," Atton said slowly, "_the_ cave? The cave where those visions came from?" When she nodded, he grabbed her shoulders. "You _cannot _go back in there," he said huskily. "It nearly killed you the first time!" She shrugged out from under his grip. "I have to," she said firmly, though the tremulous undertone to her voice betrayed her fear. "It's where Revan left the clue. She must've found something there we didn't."

"You've been in these caves before?" Mission asked curiously. "Mhm," Nikita answered. "They are _not_ fun, let me tell you!" Atton and Mical both scowled at her extreme understatement of the place where visions had driven her to near madness.

"No matter what, we have to go, boys," she said casually, catching them both in the act. "I want my sister back, and if you want to stop me I swear to whatever higher power there is that you, Atton, will be cut up by my violet saber and you, Mical, will be cut up by the cyan one. Any questions? Good. Let's go."

---

It took them only a few days to get to Korriban, mostly from excellent shift piloting from both Atton and Carth. Nikita had been studiously avoiding him; she hid in her cargo hold hideaway when he was piloting and talked to Carth endlessly about her sister when he wasn't. She did not know how to react to his kiss still – only that thanks to Carth's explanation, she might actually have an answer for him that she wasn't sure she was prepared to give.

When they touched down in the Valley of the Dark Lords, a collective shudder passed through the six Force Sensitives on board. "I hate this place," muttered Nikita. "Hate, hate, hate." Bastila gave her a sympathetic glance – the first kind gesture she had given Nikita to date. "This is where you found Lonna Vash, isn't it?" she asked kindly. Nikita felt a chill as she remembered the beaten and broken form of the Master on the floor of the holding cell. "Not something I care to remember."

Bastila nodded, and said in an almost friendly voice, "I do have to give you credit for locating all those Masters… even though it did get them killed," she said, lacing the compliment with an insult. Nikita nodded brusquely before going to find Carth, Atton, Mission, and Canderous. She loved to irritate Bastila, true, but for the sake of the others she would attempt to keep the peace.

She was to take Carth, Atton, and Mission with her. Carth was an obvious choice, and she needed Atton for the moral support he had given last time she had come into these caves, no matter how awkward it was to be with him. Mission was her unusual choice. She wanted to take the young Twi'lek to impress upon her exactly what they were going up against before the opportunity for her to go home was gone. Canderous was going to protect the ship, a much needed necessity, while the others would scour the exterior of the Valley for clues.

She marched around the ship, giving orders and arming her crew, before gathering the other three and venturing out of the ship. They were greeted with the usual arid temperature of the planet; Nikita could practically feel her skin cracking with dryness.

"Geez," said Mission grumpily, "No wonder the Sith are all… cracky. This climate would kill anyone's skin." Nikita laughed, the sound echoing strangely in the silent valley. "Well then, the fast we go the faster we can get you some moisturizer," she teased, Mission's laugh joining her own as the two strode up the hill towards the Sith Academy. They were flanked by Carth and Atton, both of whom were taking this much more seriously. They were well armed; Mission with a vibroblade, Niktia with her two lightsabers, Carth with his blasters and Atton with a deadly combo of both his orange blade in his right hand and a blaster in the other. Nikita was taking no chances of another surprise like Sion showing up. That had been miserable luck.

Nikita could feel the dark side pressing on her wound like dirt into a cut – pain coupled with the temptation to press harder to stop the pain. She concentrated all of her belief in the light into the dark like a medpac, letting her assurance that she _would not _fall shut out the pain. As they approached the cave, she felt something new; a faint whisper of voices in her head, like ghosts.

She glanced at Atton, whose furrowed brow told her that he might hear it too. "The voices?" she asked casually. Atton nodded once, and said, "Playing pazaak." She shared a smile with him, then said out loud, "Flip first card, it's 7, flip another that's 10, add the plus two card to make nineteen…"

Mission and Carth watched the little exchange with expressions caught somewhere between curiosity and concern for their sanity. Nikita gave them a quick, "Force user thing," brushoff, and they entered the Shyrak cave.

It was exactly as it had been several weeks ago – cold, dark, and practically leaking dark side energy from the walls. Nikita crossed her arms tightly across her chest. "I hate this place. With a passion," she informed them.

"Ugh, I can see why," said Mission. "It feels… wrong. Like, sour, almost." Nikita nodded. "This is why we don't go to the Dark Side; imagine feeling this all the time!" she laughed, attempting to make humor to stave off the pain the excess of dark energy was causing her.

Slowly, they moved through the cave, scouring the area for clues of Revan. Finding nothing in the tunnels, they determined it was time to go towards the tomb. Nikita walked at the head of their group as they approached the bridge, Atton at her shoulder.

"You holding up all right?" he asked. She nodded, not trusting her voice. Atton slipped his blaster into its holster and took her wrist. "I'm here whenever you need me, 'Kita," he murmured. "Know that, ok?"

She met his intense gaze, then nodded once. She gave him a tiny smile. Then she turned her head and focused her gaze on the pulsating Dark energy in the corner of the cavern. Carth and Mission followed her stare, one hissing a breath and the other gasping. "Is that…?" Mission whispered, and got a tight "yes" in reply. Slowly, Nikita began to move towards it, clenching her jaw against the hurt and temptation it offered.

Breaking into a run, she sprinted through the concentrated pocket of Dark energy to minimize the effects. Though she burst through it quickly, the pain still left her doubled over in agony and gasping for air as the others followed her. Atton rushed to her side, considerably less affected than she. "Whoa, easy there, sweets," he said, gripping her shoulder and straightening her up. "You'll be ok for now." "Yes, I'm fine now. I can hold up through the tomb," she said vacantly, concentrating on shutting out the pain.

Fully straightening up, she walked forward, eyes darting all over the tomb walls for a trace of her sister's legacy. The others exchanged a glace, then Mission shrugged and tripped off after the former Exile. The two men followed her, uneasy about this tomb.

Nikita paused as she entered the first room. She had conquered the visions of the tomb and the demons of her past, but what of the others? Would the numbers mean only one would be affected at once? She prayed so.

Opening the door, she walked cautiously into the room ahead of her companions. When no visions intercepted her, she turned and called, "Mission, walk forward. Just you."

The Twi'lek looked confused, but comlied. Almost at once her body grew rigid, and Nikita knew the tomb visions had her in their grasp. "Mission!" Carth bellowed, and went to grab her. "No!" Nikita shouted, slamming him away. "Don't touch her. Move past before the visions get you too. You should only have to suffer once apiece." The deadly seriousness in her tone got him to obey, he and Atton moving behind her.

They waited for what seemed an eternity in silence, watching Mission's face contort with whatever pains the vision was causing her. Occasionally, she would talk. "No, Griff, _please_… I won't! I won't! Don't make me!... No, Z!!!" The words tore at Nikita's ears as she watched the young girl suffer massive emotional pain.

Finally, Mission let out a strangled gasp and dropped to her knees. Nikita rushed forward and grabbed her arm, sending a strengthening jolt of Force through her. Mission looked at her gratefully, then murmured, "This place… makes you face… you demons, doesn't it?" Nikita nodded, and helped Mission to her feet. "I'm sorry," she said to the younger girl, who promptly shook her head. "Don't be. I've made peace with them, I think," Mission told her, and began to poke around the room for signs of Revan.

"Call it a crazy hunch, but I'm gonna guess Revan hid her datapad at the end of the tomb to try and stop people from finding it, huh?" Atton drawled. Nikita glanced at him, and admitted, "Probably. Which means each of you will have to face something you need to defeat." The two men stiffened, but nodded and followed her into the next hallway.

When they stopped at the door, Nikita turned to them both. "Ok, who wants to go next?" she said animatedly. At the same moment, Carth and Atton pointed at the other. Mission and Nikita laughed, then Mission drew out a flat stone. She answered Nikita's inquisitive look with "it's from Taris" before turning back to the men. "Marked side, Carth goes, unmarked, Atton does!"

Four sets of eyes watched the smooth rock rise and fall back into Mission's palm. Slapping it on her arm, she peeked under her outstretched fingers and called out, "Carth!" He groaned, but stepped forward to open the tomb door. Nikita surveyed the room with recognition – it was where she had made the choice to disable the mines for her troops rather than risk their deaths.

Pacing ahead of them, Carth froze halfway across the bridge. Unlike Mission, he did not remain static. His eyes glazed over, but he stumbled forward. "Morgana?" the name fell from his lips. Nikita stiffened, unsure of what this meant.

Carth cried out, cradling something they could not see. "Too late, too late… What? Not Morgana…? No. NO! Revan, no!" The last two words ripped from his throat. "Didn't stop you, no, please, I love you, no…" Nikita put a hand to her mouth as Carth howled like a wounded animal. He rocked whatever he thought he was holding back and forth, sobbing. But then it seemed like he was listening to something. The sobs subsided, bit by bit. Slowly, his arms uncurled, and Nikita could have sworn she saw him lay a shadow down.

Carth rose to his feet, suddenly totally calm. Calm, that is, until his eyes unglazed and he snapped back to reality. He gasped, clutching at his chest, eyes wheeling all over the room until they alighted on his companions. He nodded to himself, then motioned for them to follow. They complied.

Atton dragged at the back of the pack, obviously reluctant to face his own inner demons. Nikita fell back to walk with him. "Nervous?" she asked, touching his hand.

He took her hand in his, and answered, "Not for myself. For you all." When she looked at him in confusion, he added darkly, "My demons are eviler than most." Nikita reflected on his past, then nodded. She had a hunch as to what demon he would be facing.

The third tomb door loomed. Nikita felt a prick of anticipation at her neck. This was where she had faced off with the vision of Kreia. That nightmare scenario had haunted her for weeks. Unable to bring herself to kill Kreia and refusing to turn on her friends, the visions of them had started up a haunting mantra of "Apathy is death" before all of them attacked her. That little scenario had caused her to wake up screaming for days afterwards, looking around wildly to make sure she could see Mira and Visas safely asleep. Nikita really didn't want to see Atton battling his demons in this room at all.

However, she pressed forward, opening the door and gesturing for Atton to walk forward. He walked into the room slowly, each step testing whether this would be where the vision took him. Nikita watched, figuring his battle would be about the Jedi woman he loved and destroyed.

She winced as the vision took him, eyes glazing over so they were almost white. He didn't move, but his voice rang through the silent chamber.

"You're kidding… you have to be… you don't mean that, sweets, don't do this to yourself…" With a start, Nikita realized he was talking about her. "Dark Side doesn't suit you," he continued, his voice a weak attempt at humor. "Wait… what do you mean, my fault? I follow you, not the other way around…"

Atton's voice became raw with pain. "I left that part of myself behind, like you told me to… Don't you dare say that old witch was right! Don't do this, 'Kita!"

He dropped to his knees, howling, "I didn't do this to you, dammit! I'm supposed to save you! You're killing yourself!" Nikita squeezed her eyes shut. So that was Atton's dark demon. He was afraid of his inner darkness corrupting her, and being unable to save her from herself.

Suddenly, Atton grew quieter. He looked up, seemingly looking at Nikita, though she knew it must be the vision. "What?" he whispered. "You think I want to be a monster, like you?" He rose unsteadily to his feet, gripping his lightsaber so tightly his knuckles were white. "I can't redeem you, 'Kita, but I can end this now!" He shouted the last word, and lunged forward, igniting his orange blade as he moved.

Nikita had time to comprehend one though (_Atton thinks I'm the vision!_) before she parried away his attack with her twin sabers, whipping them out so fast she knocked Atton aside. "Snap out of it!" she shrieked, parrying his renewed attacks. "Atton, it's just a vision, I haven't fallen!" His eyes bored into hers, the ghostly whiteness of the vision making him seem crazed. Carth and Mission moved to attack, but Nikita called, "Don't hurt him! He's not himself, just let the vision end!" Returning her attention back to the man charging her, she screamed, "Atton, please!"

"I can't save you anymore!" Atton bellowed at her as he swung his blade high. In the momentary pause before it fell, Nikita deactivated and dropped her cyan saber and slapped him across the face.

Almost instantaneously, his eyes snapped back to their normal warm brown. He looked at her terrified face, her right hand still holding her violet lightsaber. Trailing his eyes upward, he saw his own hovering only a foot above her head.

Slowly, he lowered the lightsaber to his side, and deactivated it. As soon as Nikita had done the same with hers, he crushed her to his chest. "Frack, 'Kita, I'm so sorry," he murmured into her hair. Inhaling the alcohol-and-blaster-burn smell of his jacket, she asked, "Are your demons defeated?"

He drew back from her to look her in the eyes. Then he leaned forward and kissed her forehead, sending a fiery blush up her neck. "Yeah, they are," he answered, before striding towards the room's exit. Embarrassed, Nikita hastily picked up her lightsabers and hurried after him.

Mission sighed. "You and Rev all over again, huh?" she asked Carth. "Yep," he said grimly, and followed the two Jedi out of the room.

Nikita slowed as she approached the last chamber. She had a itching feeling at the back of her mind that this room would expose the one fear all of them possessed right now. It was one of the ones that had been eating at her even since she read Revan's account of the True Sith corruption, about how she and Malak had been led on by them.

And as the door slid open and the dark haired woman prowled from the shadows, Nikita knew she had guessed right. Then fear or Revan's fall was walking towards them with a smirk on her once-beautiful face.

"Rev?" She heard the question fall from Carth's lips like a choke. She knew he could see as plainly as she could the cracked skin and amber eyes marking one's fall to the Dark Side on her sister's face. "Hello, flyboy," the quasi-Revan purred. "Did you miss me?"

Nikita glanced over her shoulder at her companions. Mission's face was one of terrified understanding, while Atton's was all aggression. Carth, however, was looking at her sister in endless hurt. "What happened to you, beautiful?" the admiral whispered.

Revan's smirk grew and she flung out her arms in an excited gesture. "Why, I'm Queen of the True Sith!" she exclaimed with false glee. Her childlike mood suddenly stopped, and she glared at them with a type of ferocity Nikita hadn't seen since she confronted Revan to tell her she was leaving the army. "You all want to stop me, don't you?" the vision-Revan asked. Looking at their solemn faces, her mood swung again to pure rage. "Then DIE!" she shrieked, unearthing two red lightsabers from her robes and flying at them.

Inches away from Nikita's chest, the vision froze. Revan's amber eyes, which had been locked on Nikita, rolled upward to peer at Carth.

Carth stood there with his hands shaking, both his blasters smoking. In vision-Revan's chest were two holes. His face was a mask of pain as Revan stared at him.

Her face changed again, into a childlike pout. "Carth?" she said confusedly, her face transforming back to normal, before she exploded into dust. Nikita trembled in fear and sadness. It was the one thing they were all afraid of – of reaching the True Sith and finding it was too late for the galaxy or for Revan.

Carth clutched at his chest. His eyes were squeezed firmly shut as Mission murmuyred words of comfort into his ear. Atton glanced at Nikita, his eyes reading _leave them be_. She nodded, and began to comb the room for signs of the datapad.

It really wasn't too difficult. A flash of orange came from the shadows of a jar. Nikita ran over and called, "I've got it, Carth!" Instantly, the man appeared at her shoulder, removing the orange datapad from her grasp. She suppressed the ridiculous urge to giggle as she noticed the datapad was the same color as Carth's disgusting jacket.

He read slowly, obviously savoring each word, before handing the datapad to Nikita. She smiled to herself as she read:

**Dear Carth and gang,**

**Well, it's really not surprising that I stopped here at least once, huh? Though it's probably not for the reasons you think. See, when most people think of Korriban as a Sith world, they're thinking of Ajunta Pall, Marka Ragnos, Naga Sadow… or Ludo Kressh, whose lovely death room we are standing in right now. But it reality, this is where the True Sith species began.**

**I've spent almost two weeks here, reading ancient inscriptions in these tombs. From what I can understand, the Sith originated here before the first fallen Jedi came. By that point, their empire was already expanding out beyond known space, and so the Modern Sith (like Malak) took Korriban as their stronghold. I'm figuring from the lack of True Sith writings after that time that Korriban became just another planet in their empire, a fringe world.**

**Anyway, from all these records, it seems like one of these True Sith rebelled and left the planet some 30,000 years ago and went to the Rakata. I'm not sure how he did it, but he somehow got them to launch that full-scale invasion of the galaxy. He was later driven off the Sith homeworld by one of his own, a king named Adas. After Adas died the center relocated to some planet called Ziost. See, that's the problem here. We don't know where Ziost is. And we can't exactly go rushing on in there with no idea of what's coming or how to beat these Sith.**

**Since most of these planets I'll be moving to are unknown to any save myself, I'll start leaving coordinates for you to follow, flyboy. If anyone other than you has gotten this far, then the next world will stop them for sure. Hope you remember how to get to Lehan, better known to me as RakataLand! The Elders will only answer to me or to you SPECIFICALLY, so don't get yourself killed. Otherwise your travel companions will be left to die on that Forceforsaken planet. I think it might be nice to look for clues there if the Infinite Empire hit any other major Sith worlds I can investigate.**

**I love you, and really hope you still have that jacket. I'll be looking for it as my beacon announcing my knight (captain, or maybe admiral by now) in shining armor.**

**Yours until the day we die,**

**REVAN**

Nikita looked up to see a smug Carth smirking at her. "Told you she likes my jacket," he said cheerfully. Nikita glared at the orange _thing_, and muttered, "Did the Council do something to your eyes, too, Rev?" before retuning to the datapad.

**P.S. – Here are the coordinates, in case you forgot**.

That sole sentence was followed by a string of numbers and letters incomprehensible to Nikita, who couldn't fly a starship to save her life. She turned the datapad over to Atton, and then turned to Mission.

Smiling at the Twi'lek, she asked, "So. What the _frack_ is a Rakata?"

---

_Do not panic, Revan Marlena Vaas. Do. Not. Panic._ Revan chanted the words like a mantra in her head as she paced the little gray room. It was difficult to follow, though. She was in an _occupation facility_. And an IMPORTANT one, if the rinren was any indication. This meant it probably was armed to the teeth with equipment to subdue Force users. _Fracking fabulous move there, Rev,_ she thought scathingly. _Now I gotta walk through walls or something to get out of here._

She sat down with a flop, but let out a yelp as her tailbone hit something hard. Swearing as only a soldier who served the Republic would know how, she stood and looked at the offending object.

Revan gasped. It _couldn't_ be… but it was! It was one of her lightsabers. She squealed and picked it up, examining it for damage. She thought the Shadow had snatched them both before she entered the cell, but… maybe he had thought she only had one. She had kept the violet one tucked away in her dark brown robes so she could use her free hand. The Shadow must have only taken the blue one.

_Thank you, thank you, thank you_, she thought up to whatever higher power there was. She knew she couldn't cut right through the wall, but maybe if she cut off a thin layer at a time, the Occupants wouldn't notice.

She ignited the glowing purple blade, then paused to see if she was swarmed with enemies. When no one came barging in to take her for Occupation, she cautiously put the edge of her lightsaber to the stone.

It cut slowly but effectively through the gray rock, and no alarms began buzzing. Revan smiled grimly, and cut away a five-and-a-half-foot long oval from the wall. It was a thin piece, only an inch, but it was something.

She worked as quickly as possible after that. Revan didn't know when the Occupants and Shadows might come for her, but she wasn't taking any chances. She'd rather not be subjected to Occupation, if she could avoid it.

Soon an approximately two-foot-high stack of something like gray granite lay beside her. She actually allowed herself to begin to hope. _Maybe I'll actually get away. Then all I need to do is recover the Crystal Key and get to the Spire._

She had cut away two more inches when the sound hit her ears. It almost made her drop her saber in shock. She knew she had made progress with the wall, but she didn't think it had been enough to hear sounds. Least of all this sound, which was the last thing she expected to hear in a place like this.

She cut away another inch, and heard It even more clearly. Now there was no mistaking. Revan didn't think it was possible, but she heard the shrieking cries of a baby coming through the wall.

---

The pursuer stood on the roof of the Sith Academy, watching the _Ebon Hawk_ crew scour the valley. This was too easy. They would lead the pursuer right to Revan, and then it would end. The pursuer would be worthy.

It might not be the shortest way to Revan, the pursuer reasoned, but it was certainly going to get the pursuer to her. Revenge would be taken, on both that Force-traitor Revan and her time bomb of a sister. They had both escaped the pursuer this long, but they would not get away this time. This time the Vaas sisters would die at the pursuer's hand.

The pursuer smirked, a wide, evil grin that covered the pursuer's whole face, as the Exile emerged from the cave with her companions. In her hand was the clue left by Revan.

The pursuer turned around and began to walk towards where the shuttle the pursuer had taken was landed, in the wreckage of Dreshdae. The time was coming.

**God. This took FOREVER to write – twenty pages of MS Word! Plus, I've been doing tons of research as to where Revan left her datapads, and planning how the many characters on the ship will interact. **

**Hope you liked the little tidbit of Mir'ren's perspective and the AttonxExile fluffiness. And we are left with even more questions: Where will the datapad on the Rakata homeworld lead? What clues did Revan find there of the True Sith? Crystal Key and the Spire? And a baby in a place even Revan is afraid of? And most of all, who is this pursuer? Why does this person hate Revan and Nikita? So many questions… so little time for the two sisters…**

**Read. Review. **_**Yellow**_** will be up as soon as possible.**

**Michaela. **


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